I mean, it’s a part of history. For instance, you can find historical remnants of every piece of garbage that’s ever been dropped on the floor or spilled on a seat in there. It’s quite something to be in an arena that’s never been cleaned before.

I just bathed in tomato juice and tomorrow I have an appointment to get de-liced.

It’s like that Seinfeld episode when Jerry said, “Don’t you see what’s happening here? It’s attached itself to me. … It’s destroying the lives of everyone in its path. … It’s a presence. It’s the Beast.”

Some boos might have been intended for NHL officials, but the Blue Jackets thought they were at them Wednesday in Nationwide Arena.

Captain Adam Foote even made a plea to fans after the Blue Jackets came back to beat the Colorado Avalanche 5-4.

“I don’t think they should do that,” Foote said. “This is the first year they’ve had a consistent team, a winning team that’s not getting blown out of games. Maybe they’re frustrated from years past? I don’t know, but I don’t think they should do that.”

One of the most powerful forces in the NHL today is an organization that owns no standing in the NHL. And therein lies the problem.

ESPN has become the big elephant sitting in our room, only in this case everyone is talking about it.

The lack of a television deal with ESPN is now the No. 1 gripe in hockey today. Players complain about it. General managers complain about it. Coaches complain about it, and fans truly complain about it in most vulgar terms.

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey league fined the Quebec Remparts $2,000 Thursday following an incident involving head coach Patrick Roy.

Roy, the NHL’s all-time leader in wins by a goaltender, earned an extreme game misconduct penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct after confronting the officials following Sunday’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.

When forward Bill Guerin received the “C” on his new .Islanders jersey last summer, he embraced the opportunity to set the tone in the locker room. Praise for Guerin’s all-inclusive approach has been universal within the organization, but somewhere along the line, he has misplaced his former identity as “goal scorer.”

Guerin’s 14-game scoreless streak ended Wednesday with an assist on Trent Hunter’s tying power-play goal in what became a 4-3 shootout loss to Atlanta. But Guerin still hasn’t found the back of the net with his own shot since Nov. 1, and now he admits to feeling more pressure to lead where it counts most.

A professional hockey player and environmentalist David Suzuki make for strange breakfast companions, but their unlikely encounter in Calgary last year is greening dressing rooms throughout the NHL.

Since their meeting last fall, Andrew Ference, a Boston Bruins defenceman, has become the point man for the National Hockey League Players’ Association on environmental issues. His goal is to slow climate change by changing the mindset of his fellow players.

Friday, Ference and Suzuki will unite for a news conference in Toronto to unveil a partnership between the NHLPA and the David Suzuki Foundation. The two are teaming up to help offset the greenhouse gas emissions produced by NHL players whose jobs require them to travel by planes, trains, buses and cars.

If noted New York Rangers agitator Sean Avery made disparaging remarks toward Jason Blake the last time they faced off, the Toronto forward never heard them.

A Toronto radio report following the teams’ previous meeting last month in Canada said a pre-game scuffle between Avery and Leafs counterpart Darcy Tucker was fuelled by a comment that Avery made toward Blake regarding his current battle with leukemia.

FAN 590 reporter Howard Berger had claimed Avery made “cancer-related remarks” to Blake, citing an unidentified Rangers player. Blake was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease in October but has continued to play while being treated.

Alcoholism probably kept Reggie Leach out of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and he’s determined to do whatever he can to help young people avoid the downward spiral in which he became trapped.

He was one of the first big-time First Nations hockey stars. A right-winger, he helped the Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup in 1975. He scored 61 goals in 1975-76 and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after scoring 19 post-season goals. The Flyers were swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the final.

His big-league career would have lasted more than the 14 years that it did had he taken better care of himself.

“I screwed up royally,” he said Thursday from his Delaware residence. “I pretty well accomplished everything I wanted to do except I didn’t make it into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

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